Software solutions in the marketplace for estimating the manufacturing labor portion of printed circuit board assembly manufacturing currently focus on the cost of materials, which average 80-85% of the total cost of the product. The remaining 15-20% of the cost is the labor portion associated with manufacturing, testing and other items required to convert the product from a collection of raw materials to a printed circuit board assembly.
Because no commercial solutions exist for analyzing the labor component of the manufacture of printed circuit board assemblies, the labor component of the overall cost of a printed circuit board assembly is analyzed by:                Comparing the quotation on a particular printed circuit board assembly to a similar assembly previously manufactured by the same supplier,        Experience in the manufacturing process and understanding the labor steps associated with the particular product and/or        No analysis; simply accepting the conversion cost (cost of labor) provided by the supplier.        
The present invention eliminates the need for comparison, extensive manufacturing expertise and/or heavy dependence on the information provided by the supplier. The present invention, otherwise known as the Manufacturing Labor Cost Estimator, is a first of a kind software tool specifically targeted at the analysis of labor costs of manufacturing printed circuit board assemblies. It is difficult to quantify the cost savings associated with the use of Manufacturing Labor Cost Estimator as past labor costs have been negotiated using empirical data and educated hypothesis.